Are Reviews Objective?

One of our good customers, Robert Brook, writes a blog which he calls A GUIDE FOR THE BUDDING ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

Robert recently addressed an issue that came up when someone left a comment about the sound of Tone Poets reissues vis a vis the the pressings that Rudy Van Gelder mastered, to wit:

“To say anything other than the difference (between the T.P. and the RVG) is subjective is misleading the audience.”

Robert explains in the post below that he has worked very hard to make his system as neutral as he possibly can, and why he thinks that is a good idea. He also notes that he isn’t done, that there is plenty of work left to do, and that a more revealing, more truthful system is his one and only goal.

Any piece of equipment, or tweak, or setup trick that brings him closer to the sound he perceives as better is to be accepted and adopted after passing the “more truthful” tests he puts anything and everything through.

Are My REVIEWS Objective?

There are scores of posts on this very blog that are there to explain what we do and how we do it.

We tell you about our playback system and why it’s good at its job.

Practically every listing on our site has standardized text detailing the three areas that are key to understanding our vintage vinyl offerings. They include:

  1. What sonic qualities our Hot Stampers have.
  2. How we go about finding records with these qualities, and
  3. What we’re listening for in order to distinguish the superior pressings from the more average ones.

This is what all that looks like on our site:

What The Best Sides Of [Record X] Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear

    • The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
    • The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in [insert year here]
    • Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
    • Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
    • Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space

No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing these records are the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find pressings that sound as good as these three do.

Standard Operating Procedures

What are the criteria by which a record like this should be judged? Pretty much the ones we discuss in most of our Hot Stamper listings: energy, vocal presence, frequency extension (on both ends), transparency, harmonic textures (freedom from smear is key), rhythmic drive, tonal correctness, fullness, richness, and so on down through the list.

When we can get all, or most all, of the qualities above to come together on any given side we provisionally award it a grade of “contender.” Once we’ve been through all our copies on one side we then play the best of the best against each other and arrive at a winner for that side. Repeat the process for the other side and the shootout is officially over. All that’s left is to see how the sides matched up.

Record shootouts may not be rocket science, but they’re a science of a kind, one with strict protocols developed over the course of many years to ensure that the sonic grades we assign to our Hot Stampers are as accurate as we can make them.

The result of all our work speaks for itself, on this very record in fact. We guarantee you have never heard this music sound better than it does on our Hot Stamper pressing — or your money back.

What We’re Listening For On [Record X]

    • Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
    • Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
    • The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
    • Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
    • Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
    • Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
    • Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.

All this boilerplate exists to explain how we go about finding the records we think are superior, using rigorous protocols and the scientific method.

Over the last twenty five years, we’ve written hundreds and hundreds of commentaries that often get deep into the weeds on specific aspects of the sound of the albums we play. This is information that, to our knowledge, exists right here on this blog and nowhere else. (This commentary discusses some of the issues we’ve addressed.)

What’s Your Point?

My point is simply this. In order to take the subjectivity out of our reviews, we try to approach records the way Consumer Reports tests blenders:

Blender X is terrible at making margaritas and blender Y is good at making them. The company that makes bad blenders should be called to account. If there is a name attached to that company, then I guess we can say that that person who runs that company should learn how to make better blenders or find something else to do with his time.

I am not impressed with the quality of the records being made today, and it follows that those who make them are responsible for the poor quality of the modern remastered LPs they make. (The complete text is here.)

We don’t test blenders, we test records, and we do that by cleaning and critically evaluating different pressings of the same album.

When we run experiments with Heavy Vinyl records, comparing them to the vintage vinyl pressings we find, the one thing we can say about them is that they are consistently inferior. Some are a great deal worse than others, to be sure, but they are all inferior to one degree or another.

We have yet to play a Tone Poets reissue in one of our shootouts. We have a couple scheduled and should be able to report our findings soon.

If you as an audiophile want to make the case for the superior quality of the records put out by this label, we are happy to entertain the possibility, as unlikely as we expect it to be.

But simply saying that, since all reviews are subjective, your review is as credible as any other, will not do.

If you want to be taken seriously, you will need to back up your claims. Here are some things we would like to know.

  • Tell us about your system, room, electricity, etc.. What are its strengths and weaknesses.
  • Tell us what specific pressings you played.
  • Tell us if you cleaned them, and if so, by what method.
  • Tell us what protocols you used to make sure the comparison was a fair one.
  • Tell us how you optimized the playback of each pressing, accounting for the difference in vinyl thickness, playback levels and the like.
  • Tell us what specifically you were listening for.
  • Tell us what tracks you played and what made you choose those tracks.
  • Tell us about the specific strengths and weaknesses of each of the pressings.

Let’s be honest. You are never going to tell us all these things, because you are never going to do what would amount to a proper shootout. You are simply going to assert that, since your opinion is as good as any other, none of the above effort is required.

But it is required if you want to be taken seriously by other audiophiles.

We encourage everyone to take the approach we take and do the kind of work we do in order to be sure that the records we offer are objectively superior to all others.

If you’re looking for the best sounding pressings, either we can do the work for you, or you can do the work for yourself, but either way, to be successful the work must be done.

Pretending that your opinion has just as much validity as any other is the most obvious kind of motivated reasoning, borne out of pure laziness. It doesn’t get you off the hook. It just insures that you will never get very far in this hobby.

Audio is hard. So is finding good sounding records. Anyone who thinks otherwise is likely not doing it right.

Robert Brook is showing everyone the way. I know the path he’s on because I have been on that same path for a very long time.

Read his stuff and learn from it. Do the work he’s doing and you will make the advances he’s making.

(more…)

Rimsky-Korsakov – A Classic Records Disaster

More of the music of Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)

Our Favorite Performance of Scheherazade – Ansermet with the Suisse Romande

Sonic Grade: F

An Audiophile Hall of Shame pressing and another Classic Records Classical LP poorly mastered for the benefit of audiophiles looking for easy answers and quick fixes.

In 2009 or 2010, during our testing of the TT Weights turntable products, the record I played again and again — close to a hundred times over the course of two days — was a wonderful White Dog pressing of LSC 2446. The sound was glorious, some of the finest reproduction of a large orchestral work I have ever heard.  

(Late in life, Harry Pearson disgraced himself by putting this Classic Record on his TAS List of Super Discs.)

A week later I was still testing the system, and again using Scheherazade. A friend brought over his Classic pressing, probably the same one I would have sold him in the mid-’90s. Now we could compare the two.

It was a massacre. The sound on the reissue is simply AWFUL.

There is no transient information anywhere on that heavy vinyl pressing whatsoever. No instruments have any texture — not the strings, not the woodwinds, nothing. There is no air going through the flutes. There is no rosin on the bow of the solo violin.

The tympani are a blurry mess. Triangle: okay. Bass drum: okay. Everything else: FAIL.

Not having played it in years, I could not believe how much worse the record sounded than I remember. The gulf between the real thing and the Classic wannabe was now so huge that the reissue was nothing less than positively UNPLEASANT to listen to. Enjoyment? Out of the question.

TAS List? The original is, but the Classic is too. Now how messed up is that?

Disgraceful, that’s all I have to say about it.

If I were in charge of the TAS Super Disc List, obviously I would not have put this record on it.

Here are some others that we do not think qualify as Super Discs.

Here are some Hot Stamper pressings of TAS List titles that actually have audiophile sound quality, guaranteed.

And if for some reason you disagree with us about how good they sound, we will be happy to give you your money back.

(more…)

Handel / Water Music – Leppard

More of the music of George Frederick Handel (1685-1759)

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • An outstanding pressing of Handel’s masterpiece with Double Plus (A++) grades from top to bottom
  • This copy was simply bigger, more transparent, with more clarity and clearly layered depth to the orchestra than most others copies we played
  • Shockingly AIRY and WARM, this is the kind of sound that makes it easy to fall in love with an oft-heard piece such as The Water Music
  • Note how far back the trumpets are in the hall, yet they are still clear, tonally correct and not smeared – that’s the sound one hears in a live performance (and too rarely on a record)
  • This recording should be part of any serious Classical Music Collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
  • There are about 150 orchestral recordings we’ve found to offer the Best Performances with the Audiophile Quality Sound, and this record certainly deserve a place on that list.

The performance by the English Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Raymond Leppard is currently my favorite, owing in large part to the fact that it has the kind of sound I find the most natural and enjoyable.

In a way this may not be quite fair to other equally well-known, well-respected performances. We went through an elimination round for the work a while back, winnowing the recordings down to those that had the best sound, regardless of performance — perhaps some of the discarded records had even better performances than Leppard’s. At this late stage who can say?

We audiophiles want the music we play to sound its best, a requirement which more often than not involves compromises of one kind or another. We are happy to report that that does not appear to be the case with The Water Music (keeping in mind the caveat above). (more…)

Listening in Depth to Synchronicity

More of the Music of Sting and The Police

More Albums with Key Tracks for Critical Listening 

The choruses get LOUD and are so POWERFUL on the best copies of this album that they make a mockery of most of the pressings out there.

Let’s face it, this is a Big Speaker record. It requires a pair of speakers that can move air with authority below 250 cycles and play at fairly loud levels. If you don’t own speakers that can do that, this record will never really sound the way it should.

It’s the kind of recording that has caused me to pursue Big Stereo Systems driving Big Dynamic Speakers for as long as I can remember. You need a lot of piston area to bring the this recording to life, as well as to get the size of all the instruments to match their real life counterparts.

For that you need big speakers in big cabinets, the kind I’ve been listening to for more than forty years. (My last small speaker was given the boot around 1974 or so and I have never looked back.)

To tell you the truth, the Big Sound is the only sound that I can enjoy. Anything less is just not for me.

Side One

Synchronicity I

One of the two title tracks on this record (huh?), it’s also one of the quickest ways to hear what is happening sonically on this side. It’s a high energy, take-no-prisoners rock track that usually ends up sounding bloated and brittle on the typical pressing. However, when it’s cut right it’s amazing.

The bass guitar and kick should be driving the track, not making you want to skip to the next one. Also, when you can hear the separation and detail in the multitrack army of Stings during the chorus, you’re in good shape.

Walking in Your Footsteps

Is that a pan flute I hear? More than likely it’s a synth, but if you can hear the “air” going through it and all of the ambience surrounding it, you’re not off to a bad start.

Also, the percussion should actually sound like a drum and not like a stack of textbooks getting smacked. (more…)

The Command All-Stars – Reeds and Percussion

More Jazz Recordings of Interest

More Records That Sound Better Loud

  • This original Stereo Command pressing was doing pretty much everything right, with both sides earning excellent Double Plus (A++) grades
  • Take the best sound you ever heard from the best authentic Mercury classical record and translate it into pop arrangements for clarinets, flutes, saxes, oboes, bassoons, and what do you have? Sound that leaps out of the speakers with absolutely dead on tonality
  • But what is most shocking of all is how vivid and accurate the timbre of every instrument is
  • Kudos to the exceptional skills of both Robert Fine (recording engineer) and George Piros (mastering engineer), two of the All Time Greats
  • If you appreciate exceptionally well recorded reed and percussion instruments, and what audiophile doesn’t?, this title from 1961 clearly belongs in your collection

This is one of the most phenomenal sounding records I have ever heard in my life. 

Yes, it’s multi-miked, and sometimes the engineers play with the channels a bit much (especially at the start of the first track).

That said, if you have the system for it, it’s very possible you have never heard most of these instruments sound this real, as if you were standing right in the studio with them. It’s that crazy good.

Which brings up a question: Who but Better Records is finding incredible Demonstration Quality recordings like these nowadays?

Harry Pearson used to. Jim Mitchell did back in the ’80s.

Are the Audiophile Reviewers of today picking up the baton that the giants of the past have dropped at their feet? I see little evidence of it. They seem more interested in discussing the newest Heavy Vinyl mediocrity to be released.

Is it really that much of a bother to look back to the Golden Age of analog recording and actually find a good sounding record to recommend? Apparently.

Not to worry. We are happy to fill the shoes of the greats who have passed, and here is a record that proves we have the chops to succeed in our endeavor, chops that no one else alive today seems to have.

(more…)

Lee Ritenour – Friendship

More Lee Ritenour

More Audiophile Recordings

xxxxx

  • Superb sound throughout this original Direct-to-Disc Japanese import pressing, with both sides earning Double Plus (A++) grades – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Full-bodied and warm, exactly the way you want your vintage analog to sound – the guitar is surprisingly real here
  • Both of these sides are Tubey Magical, lively and funky, with the kind of rich, solid sound that will fill your listening room from wall to wall
  • “The third of three Lee Ritenour sets originally cut for Japanese JVC matches the studio guitarist with … Ernie Watts (on tenor and soprano), both Dave and Don Grusin on keyboards, electric bassist Abraham Laboriel, drummer Steve Gadd and percussionist Steve Forman.”

This is one of my all time favorite audiophile discs. It’s actually real music.

The song “Woody Creek” is wonderful and reason enough to own this excellent album. The guitar of Lee Ritenour and the saxophone of Ernie Watts double up during a substantial portion of this song and the effect is just amazing.

Special kudos should go to Ernie Watts on sax, who blows some mean lines. But everybody is good on this album, especially the leader, Lee Ritenour. I saw these guys live and they put on a great show.

By the way, looking in the dead wax I see this record was cut by none other than Stan Ricker of Mobile Fidelity fame himself!

(more…)

The Dave Brubeck Quartet – We Was Wrong Again

More of the Music of Dave Brubeck

Reviews and Commentaries for Time Further Out

About five years ago we wrote:

The monos we played in our last two or three shootouts didn’t do much for us. They tended to be thin and hard sounding, and of course much of the space of the studio disappears completely. One side of one copy did well enough I suppose, but my advice would be to avoid them if you’re looking for top quality sound.

Years before we had discovered an outstanding mono copy and described it this way:

This Columbia Six-Eye pressing is THE BEST SOUNDING MONO COPY OF THIS ALBUM WE’VE EVER HEARD! The better Mono pressings of this album give you extra immediacy, more solidity to the drums, and energy like you wouldn’t believe. That makes the drum solo on side two sound OUT OF THIS WORLD. Most copies are congested and veiled, but not this one! The sound is spacious and transparent with wonderful presence. You will not believe how lively it is! 

Both sides are rich and full-bodied with lots of sweetness and extension up top. The energy and transparency are wonderful. The bass is a bit tubby, but that’s what you get on these vintage Six Eye pressings. It’s worth it when there’s as much tubey magic as you get on this pressing.

Fast forward to 2023 and once again we manage to stumble upon a rare 6 Eye Mono pressing in our shootout that had the Time Further Out goods:

  • With superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout, this vintage 6-Eye Mono pressing will be very hard to beat – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • It’s extremely unlikely that any mono pressing will win a shootout, but just to keep us on our toes, we like to put some monos of famous albums in our shootouts from time to time to see how they measure up
  • This 2+ early pressing was the best of the bunch, and it’s guaranteed to beat the pants off any modern Heavy Vinyl pressing ever made

So there you have it. The right mono pressings can sound very good indeed.

Apparently, we was wrong to think we was wrong.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

It’s a Raggy Waltz 
Bluette 
Charles Matthew Hallelujah  
Far More Blue

Side Two

Far More Drums 
Maori Blues 
Unsquare Dance 
Bru’s Boogie Woogie 
Blue Shadows in the Street 

AMG Review

The selections, which range in time signatures from 5/4 to 9/8, are handled with apparent ease (or at least not too much difficulty) by pianist Brubeck, altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello on this near-classic.


Mono, Stereo, Reprocessed Stereo, We’ve Played Them All

On this Brubeck album, the mono and stereo pressings both have the potential to sound amazingly good.

Other records that sound their best one way or the other can be found using the links below.


Further Reading

Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans – How Does the ’80s OJC Sound?

More of the Music of Cannonball Adderley

More Potentially Good Sounding OJC Pressings

This is a very old commentary about a favorite record of ours here at Better Records, one I have been selling since the late ’80s, first as a sealed, in-print title for ten bucks or thereabouts, and later as a Hot Stamper pressing.

After hearing nothing that could compete with the right OJC pressing for more than a decade, we recently discovered an even better sounding pressing of the same music. Live and learn, we say. It’s what makes record collecting fun. The future is not yet written.

George Horn was doing brilliant work for Fantasy all through the ’80s. This album is proof that his sound is the right sound for this music.

The DCC Gold CD of the album is also excellent. As with many of the better DCC CDs, it’s proof that Steve Hoffman’s sound is also the right sound for this music. I recommended that Steve consider doing the title on Gold CD — you can see my credit below — and I am glad he found it to his liking. In general, I much prefer the sound of the DCC Gold CDs to the sound of the records they released.

But as some of us have learned by now — all too painfully in fact, having wandered for thirty plus years in the digital wasteland — a CD, no matter how well mastered, can only take you so far. It can beat a bad record, but it sure can’t beat a good one.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Waltz for Debby
Goodbye
Who Cares?
Venice

Side Two

Toy
Elsa 
Nancy (With the Laughing Face)
Know What I Mean?

Various Artists / Woodstock

More Live Albums

  • These original pressings boast seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER on all SIX sides
  • With Mint Minus Minus vinyl and no marks that can be heard, you will have a very hard time finding a copy that plays this well
  • We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness, vocal presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
  • “As potent a musical time capsule as ever existed, it captures the three-day, 1969 concert event that united close to half a million members of what came to be known as the ‘Woodstock Generation.’ It topped the Billboard Charts for four weeks and sold two million copies.”

You will have a very hard time finding a quieter copy!

Folks, it was a struggle, let me tell you! Not as much of a struggle as putting on the concert itself to be sure, but a struggle for those of us charged with finding good sound on this famously badly recorded album.

First off there are six sides to play for every copy.

Secondly the sound is problematical at best; figuring out what the best copies do well that the run-of-the-mill copies don’t takes quite a bit of concentration, and one has to stay focused for a long time (most of the day in fact). After a while it can really start to wear on your nerves. (more…)

Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No. 3 / Ashkenazy / Fistoulari

More of the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) 

More Classical and Orchestral Recordings

  • A vintage London Stereo pressing of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 boasting excellent Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Spacious, rich and smooth – only vintage analog seems capable of reproducing all three of these qualities without sacrificing resolution, staging, imaging or presence
  • Looking to demonstrate just how good 1963 Tubey Analog sound can be? This outstanding copy may be just the record for you
  • If you love this well-known piano concerto as much as we do, this is surely a classic from 1963 that belongs in your collection.

This Decca-engineered recording from the Walthamstow Assembly Hall is rich and natural, with lovely transparency and virtually no smear to the strings, horns or piano.

What an amazing recording. What an amazing piece of music.

The sound is explosively dynamic and on this copy it was positively jumping out of the speakers. In addition, the brass and strings are full-bodied, with practically no stridency, an unusual feat the Decca engineers seem to have accomplished.

Big, rich sound can sometimes present problems for piano recordings. You want to hear the percussive qualities of the instrument, but few copies pull off that trick without sounding thin. This one showed us a piano that was both clear and full-bodied.

With huge amounts of hall space, weight and energy, this is Demo Disc quality sound by any standard. Once the needle has dropped you will quickly forget about the sound (and all the money you paid to get it!) and simply find yourself in the presence of some of the greatest musicians of their generation, captured on one the greatest analog recordings of the day.

(more…)